The first time it happened, you were seven. Your dog, a chocolate labrador, was hit by a car. You cried the rest of the day. That night, your fitful sleep was interrupted. He came back! His face still bloody, his legs still broken; your pet crawled out of the grave and stumbled and dragged itself back to you.

Since then it has been constant struggle. The dead call to you, and you call to them. When you focus yourself and have made the correct preparations, zombies follow your commands and the other undead monsters out there begin to fall in line. However, nothing ever comes back without a price.

The Animator is a skin for Monsterhearts that takes some inspiration from the middle ground between Anita Blake‘s origin story, and Ned the pie maker. It is the kid who lost someone and never got over it; it is the power-fantasy of what they might do, what they might give up to get it back, even if what they were getting was only a shell of what they once had.

Maybe you don’t have friends, but could you be satisfied with a few rotting corpses who look up to you? Is it worth the life of a pet or a stranger for a few more moments talking with your best friend who committed suicide? This is the monster as metaphor for this skin; everyone who has lost someone thinks about how they could bring them back, or what they would give up to do it. The Animator CAN bring them back if they are willing to pay the price.